My Lily
by The Dork Lord
Summary: This wasn't Lily the freak, nor was it Lily Potter, it was just plain Lily Evans, before the magic, before the hatred, before the jealousy, before that wretched Snape boy that Petunia hated. Written for Lost in My Design 's Mirror of Erised challenge.


My Lily

Petunia Dursley looked at the room in which she was standing in disbelief. Her family was forced into an old house by some freaks she barely knew all because a murderer was after her nephew. She looked out her window at a witch waving her arm at the house, causing a silvery light to form a dome around their refuge.

She thought back to before they left her home.

Harry was having an argument with Vernon about whether they should accept protection from the wizards. Petunia was standing in the background watching them argue, while Dudley was looking at Harry with a dumbfounded look on his face.

Vernon finally blurted out, "But what about my work? What about Dudley's school? I don't suppose those things matter to a bunch of layabout wizards—"

"Don't you understand?" Harry was shouting. It was obvious he was getting tired of Vernon's ignorance. "_They will torture and kill you like they did my parents!_" Petunia winced at the memory of that night, when the boy showed up on her doorstep with a letter telling about her only sister's death. Dudley, meanwhile, seemed to wake from his stupor at this statement.

"Dad," Dudley almost shouted. "Dad – I'm going with these Order people." Vernon seemed to shrink in defeat, and Petunia sighed. She would never voice it aloud, but she agreed with Dudley. It seemed positively stupid to stay with a murderous wizard looking for Harry seeking revenge after them. Harry however, looked relieved.

"Dudley, for the first time in your life, you're talking sense." He then turned to Vernon. "They'll be here in about five minutes." He said and left the room.

The doorbell rang, and a short little wizard came bustling in wearing a mauve pointed hat followed by a dark-haired lady. They greeted Harry and turned to Vernon, with whom they discussed the travel arrangements. Petunia stood behind them and watched, not really listening, absorbed in her own memories of this house. Finally she heard Dudley say something about harry not being a waste of space, and she burst to tears, ran forward to give a embrace Harry, but changed her mind at the last moment and hugged her son, mumbling about how he was such a lovely boy, so sweet. To her Harry wasn't a waste of space, he was the only living proof that she had a sister. He was not her nephew, he was her sister's son, and the only part of Lily that she had left, and they probably wouldn't ever see him again.

She heard heavy footsteps on the gravel outside, and looked around at the sound. She was the only one left in the room, and was now in the room alone with Harry. "Well – good-bye," she said and turned towards the door.

"Good-bye," she heard Harry whisper, and she stopped and looked back. She wanted to tell him how much he really meant to her, how much she had also lost on that night he showed up on her doorstep, how she was horrible to him just so she didn't have to deal with more heartbreak, but looking into those green eyes, Lily's eyes, she just couldn't do it. With a jerk of her head, she turned and left before she made a fool of herself. Vernon saw her tears and embraced her, mumbling something about how we'd be back at her precious house soon enough. He didn't know that as they drove away, she was looking out the window not at her house, but at the boy who was standing in the doorway, looking at her with those green eyes that caused her so much pain.

Shaking herself out of her reverie, she turned away from the window and scanned the room. There didn't seem to be any lights, just candles set around the room. She quickly found some matches and lit the wicks, setting an eerie glow around the room. It was small, dark, and cluttered with furniture covered by white sheets. Every surface in the room had thick layer of dust, and she huffed, annoyed. It was so _dirty._ Shadows flickered around the room as Petunia walked through the organized mess of what she deemed useless junk, occasionally running her finger across a surface and lifting it to find it coated with dust. She sighed and set to cleaning the small cluttered space, lifting off sheets and wiping dust off of an elegant-looking wardrobe, thinking all the while about how long they might be stuck here. She looked up at a tall figure covered by a sheet. Crossing the room, she examined the sheet covering the figure. It was eerily clean, too clean to be in this room. Driven by her need to clean and plain curiosity, Petunia reached up and pulled the snowy white covering away- and froze.

Looking up at her was a small girl with long blonde hair and a slightly horse-shaped face. She looked about the age of ten or eleven. Coming back from her initial shock, Petunia stepped back and looked at the girl in front of her. She was standing behind what looked like glass, inside an ornate gold frame that stretched to the ceiling, standing on two golden clawed feet. Petunia took another step back and looked up at the top of the figure, which had what looked like an inscription. _Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi. _She took another step back. "It's a mirror." She whispered to herself aloud. Looking back at the girl inside the mirror, she smiled at her eleven-year-old self. Young Petunia smiled back at her, and Petunia felt the smile melt off of her face. This girl shouldn't be able to move. She should walk away now, it obviously had something to do with _them_, but she didn't. Instead she walked over and locked the door, glanced out the window at the wizards, and turned back to the mirror. As Petunia looked at the child standing next to her younger self, she felt her heart rise up in her throat. The smaller girl was looking up at young Petunia with pure love and admiration etched on her face, and was holding her hand as if she would never let it go. Long, dark red hair cascaded down her back, and she had emerald green almond shaped eyes that were flicking back and forth between both Petunias.

Petunia felt her knees give out from underneath her and she collapsed to the ground. "Lily," she whispered, tears rolling down her face. Lily turned and her eyes focused on Petunia.

"Tuney" she mouthed, pressing her hand against the glass of the wall that separated them. Petunia couldn't help it. She felt the tears rolling down her face and she sobbed, chest heaving, shoulders shaking from 16 years of heartbreak. She looked up at her sister, who now had tears of her own pouring down her cheeks, and pressed her hand against Lily's on the glass. This wasn't Lily, the freak, nor was it Lily Potter, it was just plain Lily Evans, before the magic, before the hatred, before the jealousy, before that wretched Snape boy that Petunia hated.

"I'm sorry Lily," Petunia whispered to the sobbing girl, never breaking eye contact. She sat back down and leaned against the mirror. "I love you," she whispered. She regretted leaving Harry behind without telling him, but most of all, she regretted ever calling her sister a freak. "_My _freak," she whispered as another tear fell.

"My Lily"


End file.
